When hot pressing ceramic green sheets, the binders for the green sheets must impart strength (and handleability) to the green ceramic sheet. In addition, a successful organic binder system must meet the requirement that it can be removed during heating such that no undesirable properties result from residues (e.g. carbon) which would be left in the ceramic after densification. This attribute of a binder is commonly referred to as "clean-burning" even if the binder removal does not involve oxidation. Note that the property of clean-burning is dependent upon the environmental conditions during firing. For instance, if conventional sintering is performed in air, the binder removal is assisted by the presence of oxygen, which provides the potential for oxidation of carboneous residues from thermal decomposition. Clean-burning of the binder becomes more difficult to achieve when sintering under non-oxidizing or reducing conditions, where oxidation is effectively eliminated. Hot pressing with graphite tooling (in non-oxidizing atmospheres) exacerbates the binder removal problem, since the graphite will compete with the binder residues for any oxygen in the atmosphere. Hence, the benefits from adding small quantities of oxygen or water vapor to facilitate binder removal (as is sometimes done through the addition of water vapor) is minimized. The problem of binder removal is further exacerbated during hot pressing by the fact that the green body is enclosed by the tooling, thus requiring the binder volatiles to escape through the crack between the rams and the die. Hence, there are long diffusion paths through the green compact for the binder volatiles. There is also little chance for control of the local atmosphere in this encapsulated system. From consideration of the remarks above, it is concluded that hot pressing places more constraints on the successful binder system than conventional sintering, and thus eliminates from consideration some organics which are considered to be clean-burning when employed for conventional sintering processes.
Another common problem to be overcome in hot pressing of ceramics is sticking of the ceramic to the graphite tooling after densification. Boron nitride (BN) powder is often used as an effective release agent for hot pressing ceramics with graphite tooling. It is commonly applied to the graphite surfaces (which would contact with ceramic powder) by painting or spraying a BN-containing slurry (e.g. U.S. Pat. No. 4,518,736). BN powder is useful because it does not readily react with either graphite nor many refractory ceramics and does not readily densify itself. This, coupled with its plate-like particle morphology, allows easy delamination of the ceramic from the graphite after hot pressing.
If a thicker BN layer is necessary (because of slight reactions between the BN and other materials or because of the need for a better barrier to carbon diffusion into the ceramic), BN powder can be formed into a green sheet using the same procedures as described previously for making green ceramic sheets. The binder system used for making the BN green sheet must meet the same criteria of strength and clean-burning nature as mentioned above for the ceramic green sheets. In Japanese Published Patent Application 61-10074 to Sadakata a boron nitride mold releasing sheet material is used for SiC hot press sintering. The sheet material has a binder containing thermoplastic resins as its major component such as polyvinyl butyral (PVB) or polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and a plasticizer such as butyl butylphthalylacrylate or polyethylene glycol and peptidizer such as glycerin or octadecylamine. In order for the sheet to maintain a required strength and flexibility the approximate range of the composition is given as 82-88weight % of the mold-releasing material, 8-12 weight % of the binder, 4-6 weight % of the plasticizer, and less than 5 weight % of the peptidizing agent. For some applications, the PVB and PVA binders suggested by this Japanese patent may not be effective since they leave substantial residue upon pyrolysis in non-oxidizing atmospheres (see Figure). Residues from these binders could migrate to the material to be hot pressed and affect its resultant properties.